1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to film splicers, and more particularly to a film splicer which unloads film from a cartridge in daylight, splices the ends of sequentially unloaded film to each other and applies an identifying mark to the film.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Film splicers for joining individual lengths of film end-to-end are in common use in the film processing industry. Although such splicers greatly improve the efficiency of film processing in comparison to processing individual lengths of film, they nevertheless suffer from a variety of problems.
The initial problem is encountered at the front end of the splicer when the film is being unloaded from a cartridge. In order to prevent the film from being inadvertently exposed during the unloading process, the splicer must generally be operated in a darkroom. Finally, when the spliced film has been wound on a film magazine it must be removed from the splicer in a darkroom in order to prevent inadvertent exposure of the film. The darkroom is far from an ideal working environment so that the efficiency of the operating personnel is somewhat limited. Consequently, the capacity of such splicers is significantly lower than the capacity would be if the operators were permitted to work in a properly illuminated environment.
In any film processing plant it is imperative that the film be properly identified so that the processed film is returned to the proper individual. In a large film processing lab this identification requirement is quite complex, and it is very difficult and time consuming to correct identification errors. The conventional procedure for film identification is to manually apply a gummed label to the film at the same time an identical label is applied to an envelope. After the film has been processed, the resulting slides or prints are then inserted in the correspondingly marked envelope and returned to the photographer. This procedure is somewhat time consuming and, since it involves human intervention, it is potentially error producing particularly in the darkroom environment.
In summary, the darkroom working environment coupled with the procedure for manually applying identifying markings to the film greatly reduces the throughput capacity of conventional film splicers and increases the possibility of film identification errors.